


Month of Darkness

by The_Alternate_Side



Series: What The Water Gave Me [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Pandyssia, the character death is referencing his past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 12:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10101683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Alternate_Side/pseuds/The_Alternate_Side
Summary: The Outsider visits his old home in Pandyssia.





	

**Author's Note:**

> One of my biggest headcanons in Dishonored is that the Outsider is from Pandyssia. This will be part of a series called What the Water Gave me, based on the song with the same title by Florence and the Machine.

It was long ways away from where he normally was. Away from his beloved Marked, away from whales being sacrificed for every last drop of oil, away from the orchestra of human noises that filled the cities and fields and everywhere in between. Away from civilization, at least, one that was existing.

The gentle waves of the sea rumbled through his ears as he walked through the remains. It had been so long since he walked these shores, so long since he had seen these clay homes. Homes that were sprayed with dried blood, thousands of years old. The only remains of a once thriving civilization being skeletons and clay, everything else had eroded away.

That, and the altar.

The waves grew louder as they now crashed against a rocky shore. The water coating the rocks, making them a darker shade of black, sweeping away anything living thing that dared go near them. The cliff was covered in taller grasses leading up to it. Up to a single ancient tree that sheltered the flat stone underneath it from the weather. 

Several smaller stones encircled the slab, each tediously carved by knives sharpened on bone. The slab itself was elevated, long dried rivers of blood in distinct lines traveling along its inky black surface. 

He remembered that day. That day when the knife touched his throat and all his blood flowed across the stone and towards the sea. Only to be swallowed by it as he was swallowed by the Void. 

He didn’t realize his fists were clenched until he dragged himself out of the memory. He laid a pale hand on the surface of the stone, feeling all the slight cracks and ridges in it. He didn’t notice them when he was first here, being too distracted by the ropes that cut into his skin. 

It was surprising that he could even return to the altar. Even after 4,000 years, he shuttered as he ran his hand across the stone, tracing the lines of red. Remembering how he fought to escape, only to go limp and surrender. 

He dared not touch the homes. 

The homes of children who had long ago died. Children he watched as an outcast, children he watched from afar; for he knew if he got close and asked to play they would beat him until he had bruises as black as his eyes. 

The homes of families who had watched as their children were slaughtered, realizing moments later that they were next. Families who were full of kind people, but not kind enough to take in an abused orphan. 

The homes of cultists who had slit his throat. He didn’t touch those, knowing that if he did he would not be able to restrict the urge to tear them down until the clay would mix with water from the next rain and flow downwards towards the sand. He wanted to destroy them but didn’t. 

He dared not touch the homes, for they were the only part of a society left. He was never a part of said society, but the only surviving part of his heritage was this village, himself, and the untamed wilds of the continent. 

\---------

The Outsider came to Pandyssia often, getting away from the buzz of the Isles, away from the cries of the poor and the laughter of the rich. He explored every part of it; from the southernmost point where the bull rats lived, to the harsh winds in the North where Ollegs cast a shadow over the ground from their wings. The west had hoards of utopas, swarming over any explorer that landed on Pandyssia’s shores. The east, however, was his favorite. Huge pods of whales gathered there, all calling in the night. He enjoyed sitting at the edge of a cliff above the water; calling to them, listening. The Deep Ones surfaced when he was near, guiding the pods with their low calls. 

The only problem with the east was that it was close to the altar. Close to his death and his life. He grew used to seeing moonlight reflected off its stone surface, casting his shadow across the waves below. The whales were careful by the rocky shore, but they always tried to comfort their god. For they saw him as one of their own. 

He couldn’t see the Isles from the village, or even from atop the cliff. He could only see water. Water; it was the only thing he saw beyond the sands of his village when he was young. The only thing that brought comfort. Even thousands of years later he would wade out waist-deep and feel the water flowing between his fingers, breathing in time with the swell of the waves. 

He cannot remain in Pandyssia forever, over the fear of losing all humanity to the deep greens of the forests and the gentle blues of the sea. Humans created different colors of the world. Harsh grays of factories, electric blues from the whales, sandy tans from buildings higher than trees. Humans added different colors to the world, while also destroying it. 

Humans create chaos easier than peace. And he would always go back to the Isles to watch the show.


End file.
